Shell-shocked

I’ve never much subscribed to the tepid logic

that because your time is limited, 

you better well make good use of it.

 

Getting stuck in, making the most of it all.

 

Like we should all go round like headless chickens

until some suitably vacated moment when death strikes in a vacuum, 

taking no account of the inevitable intermittent down time

for ill-health or anything else in between.

 

--If we had the lifespan of a flea, 

the pressure to perform would be so immense we’d instantly self-destruct,

and if our life dragged for ten thousand years,

we could be carefree and do an awful a lot of flouncing,

flouncing around to our heart’s content--

 

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Why should a scarcity of something require that it be used up completely?

 

What they mean is something in the order of: 

we should do as many things as possible,

as much as we can.

 

We should finish our tasty pizza.

 

We should pack as many items as we can

into the suitcase, 

because we don’t have another suitcase,

or if we do, 

we are not allowed to take more than one on the plane 

without paying more.

 

But what if I had taken all the clothes I needed in this one suitcase,

what would be the point in bulking up the shoe box up

with random bits of tissue paper?

 

Or, if life is a play, it should be full of action and excitement,

rather than one that adequately reflects life, or at least seeks to do so.

 

They say that if you don’t, you will regret, 

but regret can strike at any moment, it can strike now.

 

If I have done all the things I’ve needed to do in life, then can I not claim to be content?

 

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If anything, the realisation of our own mortality

invokes a form of paralysis, 

promoting listlessness and inactivity, 

as opposed to anything that could be considered productive.

It’s clearly debatable what productive is in the first place.

 

It is normal to be at least slightly shell-shocked.

 

In any case, who is to determine value?

 

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I think that the people who promote this expedition 

are the least consonant with death and ending,

or at least they live as if an invisible someone is watching and judging,

someone who they are certain knows the ins and outs,

the whys and wherefores,

and you just know that they couldn’t possibly imagine

that there is really no arbiter.

 

These are exactly the people who clog up the hold

and the overhead baggage compartments

with stuff that never sees the light of day in Mauritius,

making it more costly for others to take things that they might actually have needed.

 

The same people who you see herding five shrink-wrapped elephants at T5 reclaim.

 

The people who have the newest Apple Watch.

 

Some should have more allowance than others, they have more well-defined purposes.

 

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It’s just a replacement for god.

 

Or in other words, they are words, invocations, distorters of reality.

 

They can put you in a state of mind

that bears no relation to the truth of the initial misguided assertion.

 

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Perhaps the best use of our time is to really see the other person when you’re with them,

allow the moment to be, as it is, 

then there can be some deepening

and a level of intimacy.